That’s an incredibly solid mix of established headliners (Paisley, Keith and Rascal Flatts) and rising stars (Sugarland, Aldean and Lambert). In particular, it’s great to see the return of Aldean, the blistering hot vocalist who sold out his Shoreline gig last year.

Ticket packages go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through www.livenation.com. Prices range from $699 for the VIP package (which includes tickets to all shows in the lower level) to $149 (lawn ducats). If you don’t want to buy into the whole Megaticket experience, you can wait and purchase individual show tickets at a later (yet unannounced) date.

“The Voice” may never generate the humongous ratings of “American Idol,” but now it has one of its most famous graduates.

Kelly Clarkson, the first “Idol” champ, is joining the NBC reality show as a guest adviser this season. She’ll be among a guest lineup that also includes Miranda Lambert, Lionel Richie, Jewel, Alanis Morissette, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Robin Thicke and Ne-Yo.

Clarkson and Lambert will serve as aides to country star Blake Shelton’s team (Lambert is Shelton’s wife). Shelton told reporters at TV’s press tour that he enlisted the pair because they both have experience on TV talent shows and can impart that to his charges. Lambert finished third on “Nashville Star.”

“The Voice,” one of NBC’s few bright spots, could become even more of a powerhouse this season after debuting with a special post-Super Bowl episode on Feb. 5. The show moves to its regular time slot at 8 p.m. Feb. 6.
Still, executive producer Mark Burnett knows to keep his hopes in check. He watched “The X Factor” of Fox fall short of expectations after Simon Cowell made a lot of bold predictions about overtaking “Idol” in the ratings.

“The lesson there is to say less about your big predictions,” he said.

Burnett said “The Voice” was able to find its groove in a crowded talent-show genre because it eschewed the “mockery” of showcasing horrid singers and deluded wannabes.

“We got rid of that hook,” he said, pointing out that the show promised viewers they were “only going to see good people or great people.”

As for the talent this season, it’s “staggering,” according to Adam Levine, who returns as a coach vying with Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green and Shelton.

The Lilith Fair went out on top. Unfortunately, it has returned in an entirely different fashion.

Lilith – which was a smash success during its original three-year run, from 1997 to 1999 – has been one of the greatest commercial disappointments of the summer concert season. Poor sales have led organizers to cancel 13 shows on Lilith’s original 35-date schedule. Many of the concerts that weren’t axed have seen far-less-than-capacity crowds.

That was the case with the tour’s stop Monday at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. Some 7,000 turned out to a venue that can hold approximately 22,000 fans. Continue Reading →

Folks arriving Saturday for the big country show at San Francisco’s AT&T Park were greeted with a sign saying Sugarland — No. 2 on the bill behind Kenny Chesney — would not be performing because singer Jennifer Nettles had lost her voice in the recording studio. (What?! Did she forget she had a gig on Saturday night?! Did she not know 40,000 people had bought tickets expecting to hear her sing? Couldn’t she have declined that seventh take?)

The sign offered refunds but also stated that Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert and Chesney would play longer sets to make up for the absence. In actuality? Not so much. Chesney just pulled out his standard 90-minute set, and the whole evening was over by 10:40. Though the set was thoroughly professional and technically accomplished, and packed with familiar singalong hits — generally about partying, rose-colored nostalgia, the beach, or some combination thereof — it certainly lacked the sense of an event that last summer’s installment had, when Chesney was joined onstage by Sammy Hagar and Steve Miller. There wasn’t much magic. Continue Reading →